Some Discord in Philharmonic’s String Section : Music: A bassist and his violinist wife say his ex-girlfriend is harassing them. The Musicians Union sides with her.

It started innocently enough.

Barry Lieberman, a bassist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and at the time a 35-year-old bachelor, started dating the daughter of orchestra personnel manager Irving Bush--Nicole Bush, a substitute violinist.

But after a stormy 2 1/2-year affair--he says she once bit him, her father says Lieberman “needs professional help”--Lieberman called it quits.

Lieberman started dating and four months later married Maria Larionoff, a 25-year-old first violinist 13 years his junior.

That’s when the trouble started, trouble that has resulted in two lawsuits and a publicity ploy Tuesday that included pressuring the shy, soft-spoken Larionoff to play the violin for TV, radio and newspaper reporters gathered at their lawyer’s office for a press conference.

If you ask Larionoff and Lieberman, the trouble was Nicole Bush.

In a lawsuit filed not against Bush but against the Musicians Union Local 47, of which she is and they used to be members, the couple says Bush is obsessed with them. In their suit they describe “Fatal Attraction”-style harassment, in which Bush is said to have made hundreds of phone calls at all times of the day and night, followed them from place to place and break a window in the home of Larionoff’s mother by throwing rocks and eggs.

“It’s all kinds of obsessive behavior, constantly staring, constantly following me around,” Larionoff said. According to the suit, Nicole Bush followed Larionoff even into the bathroom.

“There are three women’s restrooms (at the Philharmonic’s rehearsal hall) and I used to go to a particular one out of habit,” she said in an interview. “I’d be there fixing my hair, and she’d just stand there, staring at me, just staring. So then I went to a second bathroom, and she’d be there, staring. And then a third, and there she’d be, staring at me. Not saying anything.”

Nicole Bush did not return calls Tuesday, but her father and the union say it’s Larionoff and Lieberman, not Nicole, who are doing the harassing.

Lieberman, says Musicians Union President Bernie Fleischer, is a malcontent who in a newspaper interview once referred to fellow orchestra members as “tenured incompetents.”

Irving Bush is more blunt. “(Lieberman’s) been harassing people in the orchestra for years now,” Bush said. “This is just part of the general harassment.”

According to Lieberman and Larionoff and the union, the couple complained to orchestra management about Nicole Bush, urging that she no longer be hired as a substitute because of the alleged harassment.

Irving Bush and Nicole Bush went to the union, accusing the couple of trying to blackball a fellow union member. Father and daughter both filed formal complaints, and in a union hearing last summer, Nicole Bush won.

“The (union’s) trial board found Lieberman and Larionoff guilty of representing to management that they should not hire Nicole Bush, and that is a serious breach of good faith and fair dealing for any one of our members to go to management and say, ‘You should not hire a member of our union,’ ” said Fleischer.

The union fined Larionoff and Lieberman each $500, which they have refused to pay. They later resigned from the union.

The union sued them and, Tuesday, they filed suit against the union--basically because, they say, the union is suing them.

Their suit is being handled on a pro bono basis by the downtown Los Angeles office of the Philadelphia-based law firm Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz.

The body of the lawsuit focuses particularly heavily on the activities of Nicole Bush, describing in detail her alleged obsession with the couple. However, neither the Philharmonic nor Nicole Bush was named as a defendant.

“We believe what is going on is not right,” said Michael Robbins, a partner in the firm and the head lawyer on the case. “We believe the union is just continuing the harassment.

“We don’t want to destroy this woman. We didn’t want to force her to respond to a lawsuit. We lawyers cost a lot of money. We just want to stop the harassment.”

Asked whether going public with a lawsuit and a press conference might not be a way of destroying her, Robbins said, “At least it’s not financial.”

Lieberman and Larionoff say the lawsuit is a way to pressure the union to get out of the case.

They say they’ve had to change their phone number three times since they’ve been married, and now even Philharmonic officials must call their answering service to get through.

The couple just bought their first home, and say they want to settle in quietly. “I made decision to marry Maria,” Lieberman said. “Maria made a decision to marry me.”